Greens In the News
| The BBC updated their coverage of the launch, first published yesterday, including the addition of a great picture of Carla and Adrian at the launch event in Stowmarket. |
The launch was also featured on the BBC News at Six (21 mins 46 seconds in) and the News at 10 (19 minutes 50 seconds in), both of which focused on our housing announcement.
The I newspaper’s Chloe Chaplain’s attended the launch and wrote a really positive piece after speaking to Carla and Adrian: The headline reads, Greens claim rural Tories are ‘panicking’ as party targets more gains in Conservative heartlands. Adrian is quoted: “I think the Conservatives are somewhat panicking about what to do about the fact that so many more Greens have been elected. All they’ve been able to come up with so far is to make their leaflets green, which I’m not sure is going to really cut it.”
The Guardian’s Peter Walker also spoke to Adrian for his piece. He writes: “The Greens have launched their local elections campaign with a pledge to push for rent controls and a mass programme of council houses built to “Passivhaus” environmental standards, with the party predicting further gains on 4 May.” Worth a read.
Sky News lead their coverage with: “The Green Party has pledged to tackle the housing crisis by bringing in rent controls at the launch of its local election campaign. Party co-leaders Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay told an audience in Suffolk they would introduce an ‘immediate rent freeze and eviction ban’ to tackle the housing crisis.” The article quotes Carla: “Local councils should be in charge of housing to build quality, affordable homes in the right places with the right infrastructure to make living there not just bearable, but good. People are trapped in housing that’s unaffordable to rent and unaffordable to heat”
BBC Look East (around seven minutes 20 seconds) featured a package on their evening news, including a piece from Political Editor Andrew Sinclair as well as an interview with Adrian by the programme’s presenter at the launch. During the interview Adrian said: “What we’ve seen over the last three sets of local elections is an unprecedented major growth in the number of Green councillors across our region and across the country, gains from Labour and the Conservatives in rural and urban areas alike and we’re confident of that success continuing.”
BBC Look East (around seven minutes 20 seconds) featured a package on their evening news, including a piece from Political Editor Andrew Sinclair as well as an interview with Adrian by the programme’s presenter at the launch. During the interview Adrian said: “What we’ve seen over the last three sets of local elections is an unprecedented major growth in the number of Green councillors across our region and across the country, gains from Labour and the Conservatives in rural and urban areas alike and we’re confident of that success continuing.”
ITV Anglia (around 6 minutes 30 seconds in) also included a package of the launch yesterday, featuring an interview with Adrian in which he says: “This time around we’ve got a great opportunity to become the largest party on the council which will mean we can deliver far more for the communities that Green councillors represent in terms of creating fairer, Greener communities.”
PA broadcast the launch speech from Carla and Adrian live – while at the launch they also interviewed Adrian
The East Anglian Daily reports that the Green Party won 12 of Mid Suffolk’s 40 council seats four years ago, “and is aiming to be the largest group in the district and possibly take overall control.” They also report on Adrian’s interest in the area as “he is to be the Green candidate in the new cross-county border Waveney Valley seat at the next general election – and that includes much of the rural north of the Mid Suffolk district.
The same outlet also reported on Adrian’s visit to Bungay with two Green Party candidates for East Suffolk Council’s May 4 elections. The three of them carried out air quality spot tests in the centre of the town after residents said they were worried about pollution from large lorries rumbling through streets. Adrian said: “The right to breathe clean air should be a basic human right. It is simply not acceptable that our towns’ high streets should pose such a health risk, especially to our children.”
There has also been great coverage in regional media across the country as lists of Green Party candidates were confirmed as nominations closed – with Bright Green picking up on the fact that the Greens are standing a record number of candidates in this year’s local elections.
Environment and climate crisis
The world needs to close coal power plants at almost five times the present rate, as well as stop building new ones, in order to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement, according to a report by the Global Energy Monitor.
Antarctica’s melting ice sheet could retreat much faster than previously thought, new research suggests. The evidence comes from markings on the seafloor off Norway that record the pull-back of a melting European ice sheet thousands of years ago. Today, the fastest withdrawing glaciers in Antarctica are seen to retreat by up to 30m a day. But if they sped up, the extra melt water would have big implications for sea-level rises around the globe.
The UK will miss a key target to install 50 gigawatts (GW) of wind power by the end of the decade unless major changes are made to the grid, according to a government-commissioned report.
The UK’s loudest bird has had a bumper breeding year after previously being driven to extinction in the country. Bitterns became locally extinct in the 1870s due to persecution and draining of their wetland habitat for agriculture. Now the RSPB has revealed that thanks to conservation work, the bird, which has a distinctive “booming” call, has had one of its most successful breeding seasons.